1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reserved communication technique in a mobile telephone, and more particularly, to a reserved communication technique for performing communication by reserving a telephone number to be called and a communication time and for automatically calling the reserved telephone number when the reserved communication time has been reached.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an exchange system has a reserved communication function. The reserved communication function will now be described briefly. When a subscriber (hereinafter, referred to as a "calling subscriber") among plural subscribers connected to a exchange system calls a desired counterpart subscriber (hereinafter, referred to as a "called subscriber"), if the called subscriber is communicating with another subscriber, the exchange system supplies the calling subscriber with a busy tone. In such a state, if the calling subscriber wants to communicate with the called subscriber as soon as the present communication is terminated, then the communication is reserved by the exchange system. Then, when the called subscriber terminates the communication and hangs up the telephone, the switch system detects the termination and on-hook state and transmits a ring signal to both the calling subscriber and the called subscriber, thereby effecting the communication.
Since a mobile telephone does not have such a reserved communication function, if a user intends to call a desired place at a desired time, the user must check the time. When subscribers promise to communicate with each other at a specific time however, the promise to call may be forgotten for some reason or other.
Dillard et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,825, entitled Method For Memory Dialing For Cellular Telephones, is but one example of a contemporary arrangement endeavoring to use a memory dialing for cellular telephones. While Dillard et al. '825 clearly teaches the dialing of previously stored telephone numbers, I have found that contemporary art such as Dillard '825 does not teach or suggest the automatic dialing of these numbers at previously stored times.
On the other hand, Srinivasan U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,782 entitled ACD Arrangement For Automatically Returning A Call At A Time Specified By The Original Caller discloses an arrangement for automatically returning a call at a time specified by the original caller. While this system automatically returns a call at a predetermined time, I have found that it does not teach or suggest an arrangement for a mobile telephone in which the user of the mobile telephone stores both a telephone number and a predetermined time for automatically calling the stored telephone number.